#that was harder than expected bc!! i was thinking

[softness-and-shattering]

Thats a good point, I see all kinds of neurodivergence in my family but only a couple of us in my generation, afaik, have a diagnosis.

However, my gp attended a recent talk about overlap of queer folk with neurodivergence and also a group of comorbid illnesses including, iirc, POTS/MCAS/EDS/CFS theres a couple others Im just blanking. Digestive issues? Things that we've broadly noticed as a community, and it seems like its starting to be studied.

And also, everyone has some kind of trauma, idk how many people if any have no kind of disability whatsoever, humanity is vast and diverse. And we're wired to look for patterns. Interpret this information how you will, I certainly cant say for sure if these patterns are broader than trans people, or are more people trans than we expect, are we seeing correlation or causation or is there a mechanism in common with all these labels thats the deeper cause, is queerness an interchangeable/'sometimes' factor or a central one, we are way too early to know that yet.

I think its probably not nothing. But we're also not uniquely fucked up. Maybe we're just sticking out, so to speak, so thats where the research is starting. Many people werent taking ME/CFS seriously until long covid prompted more research bc, iirc, there was now a lot more people affected who were harder to ignore. And who were seeking help. Like a lot of people have an allergy or a dodgy wrist or "that weird thing with my digestion" and they dont consider it a disability or seek treatment, yknow? And especially mental health and especially what runs in families, it looks normal to you so why would you ever bring it up to a dr? "Everyone struggles with these things. Everyone feels this way" well you do and your parents and aunts and uncles do and your siblings do, and maybe you told a dr forty years ago you were in pain and they brushed you off so you thought everyone was walking around in agony.

And that gets into an adjacent conversation about medicalising and diagnosing and when does that help and when is it like, making a negative thing of normal human experiences and variations, its not a disorder till its negatively impacting your life, if youre surviving but treatment could help you thrive is it worth the side effects etc etc plus the whole discussion of psychiatry in particular which can be an amount of guesswork and diagnostic labels are often just patterns of symptoms that we see oftrn go together and we dont always yet understand the underlying neurology. (One of my all time best therapists kept up with the latest neuroscience and always had very good and effective suggestions. I only stopped seeing her bc I moved away. If you can be seeing professionals who are keeping up with research, definitely prefer them over someone who hasnt learned anything since they completed training 50 years ago. Always.)

Tl;dr I agree with OP and also this stuff is extremely complex and we're always learning new things about us!

something that should be taken with a grain of salt are the statistics talking about the high rates of mental illness + neurodivergence among trans people (ocd, bpd, adhd, autism, etc)

I see both sides of the political spectrum taking these studies at face value - conservatives say we're broken, and trans people try to come up with reasons why for example autism + gender dysphoria makes sense and why one of them feeds into another

at the end of the day you have to remember that we're the one category of people on this planet who are legally required to go see a psychiatrist in order to receive non-psychiatric medication and surgeries.

more trans people are in therapy by law than any other demographic of people, and as a result, this captures more comorbidities.

if I had to look at my own family & rates of mental illness?

mom, dad, 2 maternal aunts, maternal grandmother, paternal grandmother, sister, sibling, and me all have OCD.

7/9 of them are cishet, never been to therapy, never diagnosed. 2/9 are trans, required therapy for hormone treatment, and were diagnosed.

you don't have to do any math to just see that the resulting statistics end up intensely skewed.

and we can think back to how autism was virtually never diagnosed more than 50 years ago - ruling out any grandparents being included in statistics - and even my parents' generation (they're in their 60s now) wouldn't have been included either.

I don't think it's to anyone's benefit to accept these studies uncritically. a lot of these things are hereditary and far more prevalent in the overall population than people realize

[vsagis]

✧ bweep emoji—

SEND ME A ◊ AND I'LL BOLD ALL THAT APPLY TO YOUR MUSE! / @huntershowl

NOW: I would kill you. ✧ I would physically hurt you. ✧ I would attack you unprovoked. ✧ I would manipulate you. ✧ I dislike you. ✧ You annoy me. ✧ You scare me. ✧ You intimidate me. ✧ I hope I intimidate you. ✧ I pity you. ✧ You disgust me. ✧ I hate you. ✧ I’m indifferent toward you. ✧ I’d like to get to know you better. ✧ I’d like to spend more time with you. ✧ I’d like to be friends with you. ✧ I’m unsure what to think of you. ✧ I’m unsure how I feel about you. ✧ You are my friend. ✧ You are my best friend. ✧ You are my mentor. ✧ I look up to you. ✧ I respect you. ✧ You are my hero. ✧ You inspire me. ✧ You are my enemy. ✧ You make me happy. ✧ I want to protect you. ✧ I would fight by your side. ✧ I consider you an equal. ✧ I think you are beneath me. ✧ I think you are above me. ✧ I would lie for you. ✧ I would lie to you. ✧ I would sleep with you. ✧ I would sleep by your side. ✧ I would hug you. ✧ I would kiss you. ✧ You are family to me. ✧ I would die for you. ✧ I would kill for you. ✧ I would trust you with my life. ✧ I would trust you with my most precious belonging. ✧ I would trust you with a secret. ✧ I would trust you with my biggest / darkest secret. ✧ I love you (platonically). ✧ I love you (romantically).

WHAT AWAITS IN THE FUTURE: I would kill you. ✧ I would physically hurt you. ✧ I would attack you unprovoked. ✧ I would manipulate you. ✧ I dislike you. ✧ You annoy me. ✧ You scare me. ✧ You intimidate me. ✧ I hope I intimidate you. ✧ I pity you. ✧ You disgust me. ✧ I hate you. ✧ I’m indifferent toward you. ✧ I’d like to get to know you better. ✧ I’d like to spend more time with you. ✧ I’d like to be friends with you. ✧ I’m unsure what to think of you. ✧ I’m unsure how I feel about you. ✧ You are my friend. ✧ You are my best friend. ✧ You are my mentor. ✧ I look up to you. ✧ I respect you. ✧ You are my hero. ✧ You inspire me. ✧ You are my enemy. ✧ You make me happy. ✧ I want to protect you. ✧ I would fight by your side. ✧ I consider you an equal. ✧ I think you are beneath me. ✧ I think you are above me. ✧ I would lie for you. ✧ I would lie to you. ✧ I would sleep with you. ✧ I would sleep by your side. ✧ I would hug you. ✧ I would kiss you. ✧ You are family to me. ✧ I would die for you. ✧ I would kill for you. ✧ I would trust you with my life. ✧ I would trust you with my most precious belonging. ✧ I would trust you with a secret. ✧ I would trust you with my biggest / darkest secret. ✧ I love you (platonically). ✧ I love you (romantically).

[aethersflood]

Just don't say I didn't warn you. You're Cid now, and if anything happens to him, we're finished.

[onesnoopyaday]

Snoopy #4

5/10/2024

[blueskittlesart]

ohhhh zelink in the lurelin village palette??

botw palettes

[phagodyke]

the masculine urge to take a saucepan off thr draining board and bash myself repeatedly over the head with it until I pass out and no longer have to experience feeling Bad 😍

[selfinflictedgunshotwound]

i'm kind of amazed how most of the stardew marriage candidates just want you to be their manic pixie dream whatever by agreeing with everything they like and plying them with compliments or praise or whatever (which is fine but a bit. Much) but for shane his romance is just you being there for him while he figures his own shit out... dunno why i never wanted to romance him before he's so good

[emdotcom]

My brain is so full of Bees about Post-Shift 2.

It's a fan game that was delayed for 4 years -- by the time it released, fnaf fangames as a whole were not as popular as they had been, & most people in the scene had forgotten about Post-Shift 1, so not a lot of people heard about it/played it.

Worse still is the people who did talk about the game. Pretty unanimously, the consensus was this: this game is the craziest, most insane fnaf fangame. It's overly difficult with mechanics that have no rhyme or reason to them & tutorials that are wordy, unhelpful, & sometimes actively mislead the player, meaning you need to comb through a lot of text only to be misinformed. It's not as infamous as some other fangames, but it definitely was talked about very poorly.

In general, I think most of these criticisms were blown up out of proportion, but I can't really disagree with most people's problems -- it is difficult & wordy, & rather hard to understand. I think, however, that the game is still 1. Really fun, 2. Not a bad game at all, &, most importantly, 3. Is a free fucking game that was clearly a passion project. Most damn fangames never get off the fucking ground when made in groups because the creators will never make a red cent off the thing -- this game was made by one dude for 4 years & delivered to people for free. It didn't ask anything of you except to accept it as a difficult game & to not go in with wild expectations. The dev just wanted to make a game that was rough, but he also wanted to make a game that felt unique & was fun. & It is fun, too, is the damn thing.

[scarlettcryptid]

i was telling myself it was okay that i sucked at guitar hero's easy mode at the arcade earlier and that no one was even paying attention to me but then my mom said there were 3 dudes watching me when she walked in

[kimetsu-chan]

I just checked my inbox and crap, uh I think I’m back, but that took the life out of me, so-

might take a second to recuperate 🥲

[rpgbabe]

girl love is so pure and i honestly just wanna cry sometimes bc i dont have that...................................................... and probably never will</3

[roobylavender]

(Really long ask ahead i’m sorry!) I think your thoughts on dick and his similarities vs differences to bruce are so interesting! Personally i’m wondering how much of NTT played an influence on this kind of characterization bc i’ve never fully finished ntt but i read like nearly all the pre-80s batman 1940 issues lol and dick very much was portrayed as more idealistic than bruce in some ways while more no-nonsense (? For lack of better word) in other ways, like when it comes to batman easing up a little on selina for romance reasons LOL. Though ofc dick totally turns into - well, a dick - in team books, as i grow older i find myself far more compelled by a potential story of an 18 yr old who seemed to have the whole weight of the world on his shoulders (by his own perception) and breaking under his own impractically strong sense of duty and sky-high expectations for others, then realizing as he grows older that it doesn’t have to be that way esp after seeing the perspectives of characters like kory, wally, joey, roy, etc. Like personally as someone who never really had a huge interest in NTT anyway, i’m surprised at how desperately people want to hold on to the characterization of dick when he was 18-19 and never letting him grow past that, like it’s so difficult for me to believe that at age 25 he would be the same uptight controlling kid that he was at 19. Maybe i’m biased though bc i was like one of those insufferable INTJ internet stereotypes as a teenager, and while that worldview did bring me achievements i’m proud of like the fact that i’m in med school rn studying what i love, i still know that at age 22 i have changed SO much from when i was 18 and i can’t imagine any reasonably mature or normally-functioning person (let alone someone high-functioning like dick) not doing the same lol. Especially since dick is the kind of person who would literally die if he’s not constantly growing and evolving past his faults bc of his insufferable perfectionism, idk how he’d be willfully blind to the negative effects of his worldview in early NTT and refuse to grow from there. He even has a quote that’s like “i’ve spent years as a student of my own behavior” which i always found highly encouraging bc i know he really does want to improve himself even at his worst. It reminds me of that Marcus Aurelius quote: “if someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, i shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone; the harm is to persist in one’s own self-deception and ignorance.” But what are your thoughts? (Thank you for reading all this 🥹)

oh i absolutely agree! i cannot tell you how many times i think about the person i was a couple years ago and who i am now like i cringe so much omg.. maturity is an ever persistent process even if we don't recognize its effects immediately and it absolutely is crazy to think that anyone would remain in such a static state of mind for several years on end. esp when like you said dick is someone who wants to be better! so despite his several hypocrisies it is nonetheless in his best interests to look internally and analyze and evolve. and i feel like that very much could have happened had there been any actual segue between dick's breakup with kory and his re-entry into the batfam. i don't think there was much of a connection between these two sets of writers at all and so what you got is what felt like two very distinct parts of dick's life that didn't necessarily reveal a bridge point. so it's not entirely unrealistic that dick may grow to be the person (at least to some extent) that bat canon portrayed him to be in the years that followed but i certainly think as it stands it felt unearned and like all of his issues explored in ntt were conveniently swept to the side without any semblance of closure (albeit i do think some of these issues are addressed in outsiders '03 but in that dickheaded way that winick explores things generally. so i'm not sure it's the kind of closure people actually want). it's very sad and ig that's what people cling to more than anything. it's not that they're opposed to him growing to be a better person but that they're opposed to a version of dick who feels like he sprung out of nothing

[kikuism]

oh i missed the interaction hour post but HELLO MARIAM !!! question 4 u: when you are writing a scene, what are you usually like... striving for? like... do you shape and place and approach scenes through character? or through plot? both? some specific subset of those? something else?

hi sam! oh what a question!!!!

writing is so.... instinctive for me. it's not technical At All, i just go with the flow. i'm not consciously thinking about these things....so i really have to think for this question lol. but it's such a great one!

when i'm writing a scene, character is key! that's how i get invested in a story. i will trudge through a bad plot if the characters are engaging. i always want to create a strong sense of character—i try to permeate a bit of character even through innocuous things like descriptions of setting. i think this is also because, well, all my writing is character based. i don't actually have Stories to tell...they're more like snapshots into a character's life. i am not a world building/lore/plot writer and i envy the writers who can actually think up like proper plots, act 1, 2, 3, that's beyond me! so it's only natural that my writing is character based.

however, the downfall is that i can get Too stuck in a character's head, and the writing can feel stagnant. there's no forward momentum. that's a challenge for me, how to keep a scene exciting when it's really just Character Ruminating with Minimal Action. action of any kind is hard for me! i don't know how to make it engaging without sounding like 'he went there. they did this. what fun' hgjshfhdj or even just like. characters walking together somewhere. this is why pacing is difficult for me...often when i read over my writing, it reads slow, because i'm in the character's head for so long. i want to have a good balance between action and thought. it's always a work in progress.

also, i think the biggest difference between the writer i used to be and the writer i am now is cutting out the fluff. like i want to make sure every paragraph is there for a purpose—establishing character, getting a character from point a to point b, create a sense of place, etc. that way, everything feels more coherent and flows together nicely. before, i would just write....whatever came to mind without seeing how it fit in the context of what's happening. now i try to have some kind of direction and structure in my writing, so it isn't just blindly meandering along.

[wolfisland]

i do often lament the bullshittery i got up to and ran my mouth about when i was deep deep in the comphet trenches (bc incredibly i struggled more w comphet AFTER i came out and even well into my current relationship - im just now untangling so much of it) but god at the very fucking least, at LEAST, thank GOD i never forgot my man hating roots. even at my WORST i was not harping on about how evil dykes and lesbians are for hating men.

[faaun]

u don’t need to be qualified, i just want a friendly voice!! anyway: today i was on a second date with this girl i met on tinder, and it was nice. like the conversation flowed and i had a good time, but there was no chemistry i guess? like there wasn’t a ✨spark✨ or anything, it was just comfortable. i’ve been on plenty of dates before but never got past a third one with anyone, let alone been in a relationship (even though i desperately want one lol). she texted me saying she would like to see me again. should i give this a chance or keep chasing that spark? i’ve only felt it with one person before but it didn’t work out with her, obviously

hi ! this is actually how it was for me and my ex, i didn't rly feel a spark on our dates but i did feel comfortable, like hanging out w an old friend :) we eventually got together and had a 1yr+ relationship, and i rly don't regret it! we're still good friends and i think a part of that is having had that sort of friendly vibe from the start

it's all your choice, but i think maybe stop trying to chase the spark w this particular person, and just enjoy their company! if it is the case that they're clearly looking for something more w you and you don't want that w them, or maybe they feel a spark but you don't, then absolutely communicate that w them! but otherwise, it might be worth just meeting them! dating can be fun bc you can see several ppl at once, you can look for The Spark elsewhere and in the meanwhile enjoy a friendship/fun hangouts w this person <3 it's only the 3rd date, so you don't have to pick between them and others right away i think !

[riwrite-a]

ghirahim is a sword spirit. but, to my interpretation, what does that mean?

when it began, he was a countermeasure. hylia made her holy goddess blade capable of striking down evil, so what did demise do? he did the same — he made a dark demon sword capable of erasing the sacred. they met each other step for step, and when her blade was given the power of a consciousness, so was his, shaped from his own magic to be an extension of his hatred.

the resulting creation was volatile and bloodthirsty, just like its master — if with a little less of a stable footing. demise had given it life, a purpose. demise was all it had, and would thus have its undying loyalty in return.

even as its ego grew and evolved, becoming not just demise’s sword, but ghirahim, lord of demons and commander of monsters, he truly loved — and loves — killing and causing suffering in the name of the demon king. keep in mind that evil and ill-will can take the form of physical substances in this universe, such as evil crystals and malice, and while not quite the same thing, ghirahim’s blade, from which his spirit was born, is similar.

does this mean he’s incapable of change? of course not. he’s a fully-fledged person now, with very much a will of his own. unfortunately, though, what he wants to do with this will is serve king demise. it’s all he’s ever known, and he enjoys it. when demise is killed, ghirahim sees it as his duty to be by the side of all future incarnations of his master’s intentions, if possible.

as time passes, he grows increasingly bitter, though. repeated defeat ( whether he’s there for it or not, he can sense demise’s power waxing and waning over the ages ) wears on even an ageless spirit like him. does he grow to resent his master? maybe, on a level he doesn’t fully realize. but his love for him remains steadfast. era after era, fi will choose link. era after era, ghirahim will choose demise, will choose ganondorf, will choose whoever and whatever craves destruction the most. the curse demise laid is cyclical. neverending. and neverending cycles are almost impossibly hard to break — even when it’s just one little part of it desperate and floundering for his usefulness.